Feb 6 Apple Music spikes

Apple Music is growing apace in the US and may overtake Spotify in the market this year. Apple’s subscriber base is currently increasing at a clip of 5% per month, while long-in-tooth Spotify is climbing at just 2%.

In context

Globally, Apple Music now has some 36m paying subscribers, which is some ways behind Spotify on 70m. However, Apple is up more than threefold year-on-year, while Spotify has spiked 2.5-times.

The latter is working hard to innovate, though, and has acquired a number of tech start-ups, largely in the big data space, to get an edge. Last month it began testing its Stations by Spotify feature in a number of markets that enables subs to customise their listening. This is very much in line with what rival streamer Pandora has being doing for years with its highly popular Music Genome Project.

Why is this important?

Spotify is set to list shortly on the New York Stock Exchange via a direct public offering in a transaction that values the company at between $16m and $20m. This type of listing won’t see Spotify raising any further capital, but news of Apple Music’s growth could affect the share price going forward, and existing investors have been selling Spotify stock in recent months.